


tumblr prompt fills

by Liu



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), Marvel, The Flash (TV 2014), Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, more to come - Freeform, prompt fills, random pairings i don't write often
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-03
Updated: 2018-02-26
Packaged: 2018-04-29 18:04:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 15,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5137463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liu/pseuds/Liu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of drabbles/short stories written on request/based on ask prompts on tumblr :)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 'knocking on the wrong door' AU; Mick/Axel

Mick wakes up to the sound of keys jingling in the door. Which is strange, because he’s lived alone since he was old enough to get his own place. He throws off the covers and stalks through his small apartment, scowling as he unlocks the door and yanks it open.

A wiry heap of giggles falls through the doorway and collides with his chest. Mick automatically brings his hands up to steady the person: it’s a man, or well, a boy, wearing a wrinkled jacket and a cloud of tequila fumes, still giggling when Mick grips his shoulders to pull him away into a viewing distance.

“Oooh,” the boy whispers, and his eyes go wide. “Do I have a roommate? I don’t remember a roommate… but you’re hot, so you can stay.”

Mick raises an eyebrow. The kid hiccups and giggles again… and then turns a little green.

Mick sighs and drags him to the bathroom, just in time so that the kid’s puke doesn’t end up all over Mick’s carpet. 

Mick ponders for a moment whether he can leave the guy alone without him drowning in the toilet or splitting his head open on the tiled wall, but the kid’s basically hanging over the toilet seat, barfing his guts out, so Mick risks it and slips to the kitchen to retrieve a glass of water.

The kid uses it to rinse out his mouth before he flushes the toilet and then drapes himself over it, closing his eyes. 

“You’re the best roomie ever,” he mumbles, his lips almost brushing the toilet seat. Mick scowls in disgust.

“You can’t sleep here,” he grumbles, and the kid mutters something unintelligible, but doesn’t even stir.

Mick ends up carrying him out of the bathroom, bridal style. For about ten seconds he looks at the front door with the desire to just set the guy down outside… but eventually deposits the drunkard onto the sofa and drags a blanket over his sleeping, stinking body.

In the morning, he learns that the kid’s name is Axel, and he just moved to the apartment down the hall.

When Axel’s one-year lease runs out, he doesn’t renew it. And his keys finally fit into Mick’s door.


	2. 'literally bumping into each other' AU; Tony/Matt

Tony’s late.

Usually, he wouldn’t care; everyone who’s ever worked with him (for him) has learned that when Mr. Stark sets a meeting for 10AM, everybody  _except_  Mr. Stark will show up long before eleven thirty. 

Oh, the sweet, sweet times before he had the genius idea to sign his company over to Pepper, making her the acting CEO. He thought he would have the time for the Iron Man business - he thought he could sleep for fifteen hours at once or not sleep at all for five days straight and the responsibilities he had towards the company’s management would fall right off his shoulders.

What he did  _not_  expect was how easy it is for Pepper to boss him around. And threaten bodily harm. Everyone knows that Pepper doesn’t fuck around with her threats.

That’s why he’s hurrying down the streets of New York at the ungodly hour of 9:57 in the morning, trying to type on his phone and sip his third coffee of the day at the same time.

What he also does not expect is that New York crowds don’t always part for him like waters did for Moses: he might be the technological messiah of this era, but it seems not everybody got the memo to step out of his way.

The coffee that has been a pleasant burn down his throat is decidedly less pleasant when Tony runs into what feels like a solid pillar and is a guy; Tony swears loudly and takes a belated step away, but it’s too late. The coffee’s scalding his nipples where it soaked through his shirt and Tony leans forward, but it’s useless. Good thing his reactor is water-proof. And sugar-proof.

“Watch where you’re going, will you!” he snarls and looks up at the idiot who got in his way: the guy’s fucking huge and Tony can’t see his eyes through the sunglasses, but the lifted eyebrow speaks volumes anyway.

“I thought that duty was reserved for people who could actually  _see_ ,” he snorts and lifts his document case: it’s dripping Tony’s triple-shot espresso. But the guy only frowns  _after_  he runs his fingers over the soaked fabric. That’s when his words register in Tony’s brain and he makes a face:

“Shouldn’t you have a cane? Or a dog?”

“Would you have watched where you were going if I had one of those?”

That’s a good point. Tony sighs and digs into his pocket for his wallet.

“Look, let me just compensate you for the bag-”

“I’m supposed to be in court in thirty minutes,” the guy frowns right at him. How does he manage when he can’t see is beyond Tony.

“Are you a criminal?” Tony chuckles. The guy’s mouth twitches, but it’s exasperation turning the corners of his lips, not amusement. Alright. No sense of sight, no sense of humor, it seems.

“I’m a lawyer,” comes the terse response. “And you just ruined my defense materials.”

Tony groans. He’s terminally late and Pepper will have his balls, but maybe she’ll let him keep those if he has the excuse of helping the judiciary system. After having fucked with it.

“You got it on a drive? My office is right across the road, we could print it all for you.”

“I’ll be late anyway. Thanks to you.”

“I’ll drive you,” Tony offers and grins. Getting out of that meeting because of a court? Best excuse he could come up with. 

“Do you watch where you’re going in a  _car_ , or are you going to wrap us around a telephone pole?”

“Guess you’ll have to wait and see huh?!”

The guy frowns again - still no sense of humor - but then gives a wary nod and Tony hooks his arm around the man’s elbow with a cheerful smile.

“Can you act blind? My CEO probably won’t murder me if I’m helping someone in need.”

“I  _am_  blind. And I wasn’t in need until the moment you spilled coffee over my defense.”

“Then  _act_  like you’re in need. Because if she goes off on a rant, I’ll be stuck in a meeting and you’ll be late for your hearing, you’ll probably lose that client, so no big bucks for you, yadda yadda.”

He drags them across the road to the sound of the guy’s offended sputtering.

“I work  _pro bono_.”

“That’s awful,” Tony grins cheerfully. “Were you bad in school, or is it a punishment?”

“Not everything is about money, Stark.”

“Well, a lot of people would argue, but- hey, how did you know it was me?”

“Your voice. And the building across the street is Stark Industries.”

“Oh.”

“Plus, there’s the infernal whirring of your chest.”

Tony wonders about the guy’s super-hearing if he could pick up the faint buzz of his reactor in the morning rush of a New York street, but he saves it for later when Pepper comes charging at them like a bull to a red flag the moment Tony steps through the threshold of his building. 

Of course it turns out the lawyer guy (Murdock, as Tony learns later) can be perfectly pleasant to people who do not spill hot beverages over his important documents. Pepper smiles at the man and then scowls at Tony, but lets him off the hook, for just enough time to let him drive Murdock to the courtroom.

Tony spends three hours sitting in the back of that courtroom, fiddling with his phone and only looking up when Murdock speaks. The guy’s pretty impressive. Tony’s intrigued, against his will, against his better judgment.

The guy’s also immune to Tony’s charm after the hearing’s done. If anything, he seems surprised that Tony hasn’t left yet; but he gruffly accepts Tony’s invitation to lunch anyway. He doesn’t find it funny when Tony needles him about proper nourishment for people who don’t earn actual money with their work... but hey, Tony swears to himself that he’ll eventually find a way to make this guy smile. And when Tony Stark sets his mind to something, well, miracles tend to happen.

 


	3. 'ghost/living person' AU; Kaldur/Dick

_Don’t go to the surface, or you’ll get hurt_.

That’s a mantra all Atlantis children learn early on. As soon as they’re old enough to understand, old enough to push up and up through the aquamarine depths of their home, away from the safety of their mothers’ embraces and their fathers’ protection. It’s a warning against fishermen and trophy hunters, surface people with harpoons and irrational fears of things lurking beneath their fragile boats. It’s ingrained in every Atlantis child’s subconscious, like a tug against one’s stomach whenever they swim too far, too high, a compass that always leads them back home before they can put themselves at risk.

Those words are etched into Kaldur’s mind as well - but once he learns who his father is, who he has  _become_ , everything he knows crumbles to dust and leaves his head hollow and full of half-formed echoes he can’t chase away. 

So he swims, and swims, and he half-expects that feeling the cool ocean breeze against his face will make breathing easier, but it doesn’t really happen. He swims to the shore anyway: it’s dark and deserted, and it must’ve been raining because the sand is wet under his feet. He wobbles a little, his body used to the support of water all around him, like loving hands that won’t let him fall. He collapses into the sand and it sticks to his clothes, to his hands: he rubs them against his face and the scrape doesn’t help to erase the thoughts swirling in his head. 

He stares at the waves and wonders if he should go back, but there’s no pull, no internal safety warning ringing in his head this time, so he just watches the ebb and flow of waves licking at his feet, and shivers when the wind picks up.

He can’t explain how he knows, but the sudden feeling that he’s not alone creeps up on him with dead certainty. When he turns his head, there’s a boy sitting just a few feet to his right, and Kaldur’s heart skips a beat: but he’s not really afraid. Not after learning that the blood of Atlantis’ worst enemy is sloshing around in his veins, too.

The boy’s beautiful. He’s not Atlantean, Kaldur can see that much even in the faint shimmer of the stars above. There are no gills cutting across his neck, and his fingers, wrapped around the knees he holds close to his chest, look ridiculously long without any webbing. He’s younger than Kaldur, by a year or two, if humans age the same way Atlanteans do. 

And he’s crying.

Kaldur starts to reach out, but touching a human seems to be another violation of an unwritten rule, so he lets his hand drop back into the sand.

“Hey,” he calls out softly; his voice is almost drowned out in the quiet whispering of the waves. 

The boy turns to him anyway, and his cheeks are shiny. Seeing water on someone’s face doesn’t usually surprise Kaldur, or indicate any particular sadness, but this boy is a picture of misery, and Kaldur’s heart breaks a little for his sake.

It’s strange. Kaldur’s usually not the most compassionate among his peers: some have even called him cold, another reason why Kaldur fears the legacy of his father so much.

“My parents,” the boy says, and looks back to the sea. Kaldur follows his gaze, even though there’s nothing but the reflection of the moon all the way the horizon.

“What happened to them?” Kaldur finds himself asking.

“I’m waiting for them,” the boy whispers. Kaldur feels a cold shiver starting from his core, spreading out down his arms, through his legs. Humans don’t just come back from the ocean; storms are unkind to ships out there.

“Were they on a boat?”

A nod, and a sniff. Kaldur wishes he could help; wishes he could focus on someone else’s pain instead of his own. But then, it’s probably unfair to compare dead parents to his father. His father, who’s not dead... just lost.

“Tell me about them,” he asks, and he’s almost certain that he won’t get any answers, but then the boy starts talking. His name is Dick - that’s the first thing Kaldur burns into his memory. There are bits and pieces about the boy’s parents, half-forgotten moments, smiles and words, his mother’s hair and his father’s eyes, a necklace. 

“I can look for it,” Kaldur offers, in a foolish attempt to help, somehow: Dick turns to him and smiles. It transforms his face, still shiny with tears, and Kaldur’s heart lurches violently.

He will help, as much as he can.

....

It takes a lot more time than he would’ve thought. The ocean’s vast, and even with vague knowledge of that particular ship’s path, it’s not easy to find a vessel once it surrendered to the water. Kaldur can’t search for long, either: there’s school and there’s training, duties to fulfill and people to hide from so that nobody can forbid him from going back.

And he does: he alternates his free time between looking for the ship and going back to that shore, to that boy. He’s always there, knees up to his chest and eyes relentlessly searching the rolling waves. Sometimes, Kaldur just sits next to him; sometimes, he talks about Atlantis and makes the boy stop crying for a short while.

Kaldur knows he’s in trouble. He used to be the best in his class, but now he’s slipping. He used to be focused on becoming the best warrior he can be, but now, instead of diagrams, all he can see behind his closed eyelids are the soft contours of the boy’s face; Kaldur’s muscles used to long for the strain of a good sparring match, but now, they only ever strain towards the surface.

He feels bad, whenever he puts off the search in order to go see Dick, to sit with him and stare into nothing. He feels like he’s going back on his word, and the next day, he always pushes through the ocean’s depths, trying to find what he promised... but his stomach is always churning with the wish to just go back to the shore one more time.

When he does find the ship, his throat is tight as he searches the wreckage - it’s a small one, so it’s not that hard to find the people he knows must be Dick’s parents. The necklace dangling around the woman’s neck gives way when he touches the chain; saltwater has bitten into the silver and turned it black and brittle. Kaldur carefully holds the pendant, a dark blue stone, in his palm and tucks it into his pocket - he has to wait until the next day, there’s not enough time to swim all the way back to Dick’s shore now.

It takes him three days to find the time (and the courage) to go. Dick’s curled into a tight ball on the beach, just like always, and Kaldur’s chest hurts when he thinks about giving up the only reason the boy has to come back.

Maybe he’ll come back for Kaldur, too - Kaldur tentatively thinks of them as friends, even though the word always curls strangely around the emotions filling up his chest when he looks at Dick.

He considers keeping the necklace, or whatever remains of it, for longer; but he can’t lie to Dick, and when he wordlessly sits next to the boy and pulls the pendant from his pocket, holding it out on his open palm to Dick like an offering, his heart’s doing somersaults and falling into nothing.

Dick looks at the pendant slowly; his whole face lights up and his eyes rise to meet Kaldur’s. He lifts his hand, and Kaldur almost yanks his own away - they have yet to touch, the last imaginary boundary to break, and Kaldur finds himself shivering in anticipation. Will his hands be warm against Kaldur’s skin...? Will they be cool, from sitting out here all the time; roughened by the sand, damp from the tears he’s been wiping off his cheeks?

Dick’s fingers hover half an inch above the pendant - Kaldur’s breath hitches in his chest when their eyes meet again.

And then, Dick is reaching, reaching, his hand falling through the stone, through Kaldur’s palm, shimmering and twisting like smoke in the air.

Kaldur stares in horror as Dick’s fingers disappear into the wind - thin wisps of Dick fall away, up his arm, his shoulder, his whole body is disappearing and Kaldur reaches blindly for the boy, but his touch never connects with anything but the sand where Dick was sitting just a moment ago.

The pendant is still in Kaldur’s hand. He tucks it back into his pocket before he stands up and staggers towards the waves. He lets the pull of the water drag him away, away and home, and he doesn’t really choke on the salty depths.

But now, he understands the quiet, simple warning about the surface and the hurt a little more.

 


	4. 'miserable people meeting at a wedding' AU; Mark/Ray

Mark hates this.

The last wedding he attended, he was with Clyde; they both went stag and drunkenly laughed about all the bridesmaids that kept casting longing looks their way across the awfully decorated room.

The last wedding he was  _supposed_  to attend was Clyde’s own. He had the fucking engagement ring safely tucked away in his bedside table the night of the explosion. Mark still can’t believe that Clyde’s stupid girlfriend was okay with him being a bank robber, but she couldn’t handle him being a meta. 

Mark’s not even sure why he was invited. Probably because Snart felt stupid having his sister fill the shoes of best man, usher, bridesmaid AND his sole wedding guest. It’s not surprising: Mark often feels like he’s a Rogue just for the numbers, too. 

Every stupid thing reminds him of Clyde here. They never got as far as planning his little brother’s wedding: Clyde was all star-eyed expectations and uncertainty before it all happened. And Mark can’t very well picture his brother giving two fucks about serviettes and flower arrangements, but it still doesn’t change the fact that Mark keeps thinking about him through the ceremony, wondering how Clyde would’ve looked, wearing a tux and the same stupidly blissed-out expression Mark can now see on Snart’s and Allen’s faces.

It’s even harder, sitting thirty feet away from Clyde’s killer, watching the man get all teary-eyed over his foster son’s wedding. Mark laughs when West says something appropriately snide about his son’s choice in a spouse, but it rings hollow in his ears, so he downs another drink to get rid of the aftertaste of that sound in his throat.

He has to actively fight down his powers: Snart sent him a death glare at the beginning of the reception, when the appropriately beautiful August skies gathered clouds, and Mark has been trying his best not to create a downpour ever since. It gets easier once he moves out of the room, to the gardens, and stares at the setting sun. It should be beautiful and moving and all that crap, but it just makes Mark crave another drink.

As if on cue, the sliding door swishes open and somebody steps out; Mark doesn’t care enough to turn and look.

Ice cubes clink loudly against the tall glass that is set onto the balustrade, right next to Mark’s elbow. He looks up then, and is met with a blinding smile.

“Long Island Iced Tea,” the guy explains, as if Mark asked. “You don’t look nearly drunk enough for someone who’s single at a wedding.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” Mark grumbles, but accepts the drink and gulps down a good half of it. He can’t feel the burn, not really, so he hopes for it to kick in a little later.

He eyes his alcoholic fairy godmother: the guy’s tall-dark-and-handsome in the classical sense, wearing a suit that Mark can’t price just by looking, but it fits a lot better than Mark’s rental tux, so he assumes it’s expensive and turns away. The sun has set completely, leaving a slight chill in the late summer air, and a thought of bonfires and Clyde’s laughter surfaces in Mark’s mind.

“I’m Ray,” the guy says, without prompting. Mark can’t say he cares, but now, he has a name to connect with the face. Ray Palmer - that explains the expensive suit and also the carefully cut and styled hair, so unlike Mark’s messy mop. He’s run his hands through his hair far too much today, and he can feel stubble on his chin - he could never go a full day without shaving, not after he left his teenage years behind.

“Okay,” Mark shrugs, and wants to ask what the guy - Palmer - wants, but he needs the last fucks he has to give for the day to keep the clouds from gathering again, so he doesn’t.

“Wanna dance?” 

That has Mark’s head turning, until his mouth is almost buried into his shoulder as he glares at Palmer. Who’s giving him a thousand-Watt smile, all crinkly eyes, perfect pearly-whites and a ridiculous dimple in his chin.

“I’m not gay,” Mark grouses.

The smile doesn’t even waver.

“I’m not either. At least I think I’m not. I don’t know. I never really gave it much thought. But you’re single, I’m single, and there’s good music on, and you look like you could use a distraction. Y’know. So it doesn’t start raining or something.”

So he knows who Mark is; curious. People tend to give him a wide berth once they know. But maybe Mark shouldn’t be so surprised - they  _are_  at a wedding of a Rogue and a cop.

(Snart would probably argue. He’s so touchy about his boyfriend being ‘just’ a CSI.)

He pushes away from the balustrade and straightens his back. It feels a little like he’s bracing for a fight, but that stupid labrador smile aimed at him full-blast is making it hard to stay angry. Mark downs the rest of his Long Island and sighs, then shrugs.

“Ah, what the fuck.”

Palmer’s smile brightens - how is that even possible? - and he steps forward. That’s when Mark realizes Palmer intends for them to dance out here, to the soft sound of music filtering into the garden through the open door.

“This is stupid,” he says, frowning, but Palmer moves into his personal space effortlessly, an almost imperceptible cloud of cologne trailing after him. Mark takes a deep breath and gets a lungful of the fleeting scent. It’s not unpleasant, but Mark feels weird anyway.

Their hands bump when they both instinctively reach for the other’s waist. Mark scowls, and Palmer backs down easily, laughing as he reaches up, his long fingers wrapping around Mark’s shoulders. He starts swaying, and at that point it feels more ridiculous  _not_  to follow, so Mark lets his hands close that last inch to Palmer’s waist and moves with the man.

They’re the same height. Palmer’s eyes are ridiculously dark and it should be unnerving how he just stares at Mark, smiling, but it’s not. It’s easy to follow Palmer’s lead and sway to the rhythm, let this whole day just break off and fall away, piece by piece. Mark finds himself thinking about how long has it been since he was this close to another person, this easily, simply close. Months, probably; years, likely. He hasn’t been with anyone for far too long, and even if he likes blaming it on his mood shifts, related to his meta powers, he knows that he’s been alone long before that reactor exploded. He never minded overmuch: mostly, he had Clyde there with him, for everything that mattered. But now, having just watched the guy who was probably voted ‘Most Unlikely to Get Married’ get hitched to someone who makes his eyes go bright and alive every time they look at each other… Mark can’t help but wonder if he’s not missing something crucial after all. If he hasn’t been missing it for a while without even realizing the origins of that bottomless pit in his stomach.

Palmer sways closer; their chests brush. Mark doesn’t move away, not for long minutes, not until Palmer leans in and his long, dark lashes flutter over his eyes.

“I thought you said you weren’t gay,” Mark snarls as his heartbeat quickens. He can hear himself mask insecurity with anger; he tends to do that, from time to time. Is it the Long Island? Has the alcohol finally kicked in and now he can’t tell what he wants, or who he wants it from?

Palmer laughs. The warm sound of it brushes against Mark’s cheek.

“Does it matter?” he asks. His fingers keep kneading into Mark’s biceps, like he can’t stop his hands from moving. Mark decides that it really, really doesn’t matter at all. When Palmer searches his eyes, he must find the sort of an elaborate answer he’s looking for, because he leans back in and this time, Mark doesn’t move away.

He knows a thing or two about lightning, now - he doesn’t think it’s ever felt like this when he created it alone. It shivers at the bottom of his stomach, tingles through his whole body, and his hands slide a little on the custom-cut wool of Palmer’s jacket. Mark has no idea how this translates into anything past the next few minutes, but for now, he’s content swaying to the music he doesn’t even hear anymore, his mouth warmer than it has been in years when he opens it to let Palmer slip him the tongue.

The skies stay clear through the night. 

 


	5. 'Soulmates' AU; Tony Stark/Loki

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For nova-arcania over on tumblr :)

Tony pushes his fingers into his eyelids and groans in his chair.

He thought he was done fighting windmills… but no. Apparently, there will always be a battle to be fought. Too bad this one means that all of the people he trusted to have his back turned against him.

In all fairness, it’s not  _all_  of them. But Natasha’s been distant ever since Bruce fucked off to Pakistan the second he heard the word government uttered at an increased frequency; Rhodey’s there only because Tony’s side happens to coincide with his army orders; Pep’s been busy running the company and staying the hell out of the whole conflict; and Tony can’t very well knock back a few and chill with the Vision. He’s not even going to think about T’Challa, who likely sided with Tony only because Steve’s got a vibranium shield and the Panther always eyes that thing like it was made out of his grandmother’s stolen jewelry.

Long story short, Tony’s alone, and he hates it. It’s not that he’s never been alone before: but over the past years he got used to people fighting these enormous, international battles  _with_  him. To have those same people shout at him about betrayal and selling out and ridiculous demands is… disheartening, to say the least.

He’s trying his best to improve his armor – last time, the fucking Winter Soldier nearly tore his arm off and that is not acceptable. Usually, working on his suit settles Tony’s mind, gets him in the zone like little else… but working on making his armor stronger against people he once considered friends somehow sours the whole process, and Tony has to struggle to keep his mind focused on the task.

So there’s little wonder he barely notices when the scarred skin of his chest, right where his reactor used to be, starts to tingle and itch. It takes a minute of absently rubbing his chest before it disturbs him out of his thoughts, and he immediately looks up in alarm.

And of course, the one guy he does  _not_ want to see is right there. Well.  _One_  of the guys Tony doesn’t want to see – the list is getting longer every day, he swears.

“Didn’t I make myself clear earlier?” Tony sighs and swivels around on his chair to face Loki properly. “I’m not gonna bond with you.”

Loki regards him with the kind of cool composure Tony can’t help but envy at the moment. Maybe he should be alarmed that Loki’s here, in his space, moving so that he’s standing between Tony’s spread legs. He brings his hand up and cards his long, long fingers through Tony’s messy, sweaty hair. The touch would make Tony’s knees buckle if he wasn’t sitting; he lets out a drawn-out, shaky exhale and lifts his eyes up to Loki’s face.

  
“I mean it,” he says, but he knows his resolve is weakening. It’s been nearly a year since he figured out that the tiny golden flecks and broken lines spreading over the scar tissue on his chest are actually a mangled soulmark – a year since Loki started showing up in his workshop, in his apartment, at Starbucks. The soulmark’s always fading fast when Loki’s off to another world, blazes shiny gold when he’s on Earth, and Tony’s learned to use it as a fairly accurate indicator of Loki being nearby. But in the past days, he’s been distracted, and he thought that for once, maybe his life could just work in his favor and arrange another preoccupation for the annoying god. Asgardian. Alien.

  
“In light of current events, you should reconsider,” Loki purrs. He can be unexpectedly agreeable when he’s trying to sweet-talk instead of threaten. Tony likes it maybe a little too much. He can feel his soulmark throb when Loki continues stroking light fingers through his hair; it raises goosebumps all over Tony’s arms and he shivers, then catches Loki’s wrist, pulling his hand away. He’s not ready for this. He’ll never be ready – and he’s not sure what Loki’s angle is, but he can be damn certain it won’t be favorable for him, in the end.

  
“Why would I do that?” he huffs. 

Loki twists his hand in Tony’s grip and laces their fingers together. He’s so tall… Tony’s neck is cricking from having to look all that way up.

  
“Mutual benefits?” Loki smirks. “If we bond, you could draw on my strength. Something that would likely come in handy, by the looks of you.”

His other hand rises to Tony’s face, and a cool thumb runs over the dark shadows under Tony’s right eye. When did Loki learn to be so tender?

And when did Tony start imagining how it would feel to surrender? He’s been hard-wired to never give up, to always stay on top of things, of  _everything_ … but now, looking up into those treacherous eyes that always turn soft for him, Tony finds himself wondering if it would be all that bad to surrender, just this once. Having a soulmate is not the same as waging a war, after all… and even if with Loki, it would probably come close, Tony’s almost sure it wouldn’t be all bad.

He lets the Asgardian move closer, straddle his legs and curl an arm around Tony’s shoulders. Tony always expects him to smell like dust and ozone and ice, but there’s only the faintest whiff of something expensive and spicy.

Tony’s hands settle on Loki’s hips on their own.

  
“I don’t understand why you keep insisting,” he mutters and his eyes fall half-closed when Loki leans in, his lips brushing Tony’s cheekbone.

  
“You’re my soulmate. There’s no use fighting power as old as that. I would not have chosen you if I could have a say, but I could have done far worse, I assure you.”

Tony has to fight himself not to turn his mouth towards the inviting heat. “Just saying – you could wait thirty, forty years, let the problem solve itself.”

“Ah. Optimistic about your life expectancy? How refreshing.”

“I like to dream big,” Tony chuckles. He’s learned how the reminder of his human lifespan annoys Loki; at the beginning, it was enough to make him leave, in a huff and breaking things on his way out. Not anymore, though. He’s been staying longer and longer, as if he’s learning to navigate the obstacle course that is Tony’s intimacy issues, and Tony doesn’t really know how many hurdles he’s got left before Loki crosses the finish line.

Loki’s lips find that spot where Tony’s ear meets his jaw, and he sighs, inching closer and closer to waving a white flag. He doesn’t even know how they got here, from all the shouted accusations and fights to the point where Loki can just stride in and deposit himself in Tony’s lap and Tony just  _goes with it_.

 

“We do have things in common, Stark. We could be good together.”

  
“Like what?” Tony barks out a laugh – it turns into a groan when Loki vindictively bites down on his ear.

“We could bond over our exposure to sub-par parenting,” the asshole smirks, and how sad is it that the only person making Tony laugh in the past few gruesome weeks is an alien villain? “And then I could show you some interesting spells to use on your enemies.”

Tony’s hands tighten on Loki’s hips and he frowns.

  
“They’re not my enemies.”

Loki leans back solely for the purpose of giving Tony an incredulous, perfectly raised eyebrow and a sarcastic ‘mmm-hm,’ with that annoyingly knowing lift in intonation at the end.

  
“Opponents, maybe,” Tony concedes with a huff. “Temporary adversaries. And I’d appreciate it if you could stay out of this. No spells, no alien armies, please.”

For some reason, Loki finds that amusing.

  
“Hmm. I could still  _become_  the government. You Midgardians are awfully disorganized… one of you can hardly run even a tiny part of this world for a blink of an eye.”

“I said no alien armies, but I thought ‘don’t try to make yourself the King of Earth on my account’ was kinda inherent.”

“I’m just trying to help.”

  
“Well, don’t,” Tony huffs, his hand tugging at Loki’s immaculate button-up until the tails escape from his pants and Tony can slip a hand underneath, over the skin that’s permanently a few degrees below the normal human temperature. Tony got used to it months ago, but the feeling is always a pleasant shock to his system on that first touch.

  
“Are you sure about that? Can’t think of even a single thing I could do for you, Stark?” Loki smirks at him again, his eyes full of lascivious promises, and Tony’s done fighting himself for today. He’s still desperately holding on to the thought that this doesn’t have to mean anything, that just because he occasionally gives in to the carnal side of things doesn’t mean they’re bonded, that they ever  _will_ be… but he’s also subconsciously come to terms with the fact that Loki’s gonna wear him down, one of these days.

He leans forward and bites into Loki’s lips; it’s like pouring electricity into a machine. Loki comes alive under his touch and his hands tug at Tony’s hair, fingernails scraping against Tony’s scalp as Loki pushes back. His tongue is hard and demanding in Tony’s mouth, and Tony angles his hips up, nearly pushing Loki off, but his hands hold steady onto the man’s back, arms curled tight around him.

Hell, he might be well on his way to surrender… but Starks never go down easy.


	6. high-school AU; Mark Mardon/Hartley Rathaway

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by andyneedstostop on tumblr :) original prompt was "jock/nerd" AU, but it got away a little... sorry XD

Thing is, everybody in this school is intimidating.

 

Not physically; not really. The jocks are all lacrosse or polo players and Mark knows that he could easily fight three or four of them and still probably win. These fancy private school people don’t know how to throw a punch – most of them have only been taught the basics of self-defense, if anything.

 

But they’re all little princes and princesses trying to network with other heirs of the most influential families, and Mark doesn’t feel like he qualifies. It’s probably public knowledge that the Mardons run a business of extortion and weapon trade, so nobody really makes an attempt to talk to Mark: they’re all too busy trying to snatch up the best friend position with future senators and CEOs.

 

It’s not like he’s completely alone. There’s Clyde; but Clyde is a senior and his tight-knit group of friends doesn’t put hanging out with freshmen high on their priority list. Mark’s brother will nod and smile and wave at him when they pass each other in the corridor, he’ll ask how Mark’s doing, but that’s about it.

 

There’s only one other person who looks equally lonely by the time the first week’s over. It takes Mark another week to gather up the courage to go and sit at the table with Hartley Rathaway, but he tells himself he’s got nothing to fear.

  
“Can I help you?” Hartley asks, without looking up from his plate, and Mark swallows. Hartley makes the words sound like ‘fuck off,’ reminding everyone that he’s not alone because his family name doesn’t ring strong enough – no. He’s alone because he spends every minute of every day being a dick to everyone around. The guy came out immediately upon his arrival in this school, and he’s had a very ‘fuck you all’ attitude since day one – it kind of made Mark want to get to know him, underneath that bravado and acerbic sneers, because even in this day and age, it took some guts to be so open. Mark wishes he could do the same.

 

“Hey,” Mark says weakly. Hartley finally glances up, but Mark almost wishes he wouldn’t.

  
“What’re you doing?”

 

Hartley’s voice is suspicion and derision mixed into one, and Mark bites his lip.

  
“I thought… you’re always alone. And I’m alone, too.”

 

It’s stupid, and Hartley probably thinks so too, because he raises one eyebrow over his glasses and snorts.

 

“Didn’t it occur to you that I would rather be alone than socialize with all of you boring knuckleheads?”

 

It did – Mark just hoped he could exclude himself from the ‘boring’ group in Hartley’s eyes.

 

“I… ah. I don’t really have many… friends. Like… me. Like you.”

 

He’s cursing his blubbering incoherency, especially when it turns out his uncertain, half-assed coming-out doesn’t make Hartley feel any kinder towards him.

  
“So that’s what this is about? You heard I’m gay and you thought we could all go wave rainbow flags over our heads together? I’m not interested,” Hartley snarls and picks up his plate of shrimp risotto. “I would appreciate it if you found someone else to latch on, Mardon. Farewell.”

 

He stalks away in a huff, leaving Mark sitting there like an idiot, staring after the irritable boy.

  
All he can really think of is _Hartley knows my name_.

 

……………..

 

In the end, Mark does make friends. Turns out that once all the tycoon kids are off the shelves, the second son of the most influential mob family in the city is good enough. Mark doesn’t really mind: his new friends don’t really talk so much about the future, and at the end of the term, Mark even finds the guts to talk to Shawna about his crush on Hartley.

 

“That’s awful,” she says and pats his cheek, her eyes big and round and pitiful. “I don’t think we can be friends anymore.”

 

“What?” he mumbles, his stomach churning – he’s been so terrified of people judging him, abandoning him because of who he is, and he’s spent the past weeks trying to persuade himself that Shawna wouldn’t do that. It terrifies him when he faces the possibility that she _could-_

 

“You, baby boy, have a _terrible_ taste in guys,” she snorts and pats his cheek again, a little harder, before she leans back and stretches his arms over her head.

  
“We should find you someone better to moon about. I mean, Rathaway? Seriously? He’s a total nerd… and a dick.”

 

Mark just shrugs and chuckles, relief washing over him like a tidal wave. They spend the rest of the day secretly texting under their desks about who’s the hottest guy in their year… but Mark’s eyes still shift towards the front row and the styled chocolate-brown hair he would recognize anywhere.

 

…………………..

 

Lacrosse isn’t as boring and stupid as Mark thought. He joins the team at the beginning of the sophomore year, mostly ironically; but he ends up liking the physical exertion of it. It helps keep his melancholy moods on the back burner, and he’s better at it than he thought he’d be. With the status of a jock, people start to notice him more: even heirs to their parents’ empires aren’t completely immune to the pecking order of a typical high school environment and Mark finds himself invited to study groups and day trips and parties.

 

He can’t help but watch Hartley anyway. It’s not even that he needs someone he could talk to about being gay: he’s got Shawna, and a few other friends who don’t really care either way. But no matter how many people he has to talk to, there’s a part of Mark that’s stuck at that cafeteria table in freshman year, watching Hartley leave and desperately wishing he wouldn’t.

 

Maybe that’s why he reacts without thinking when he sees Hartley one day, surrounded by some of the polo players and hissing at them like a cat backed into the corner. Hartley’s wiping at his mouth, but his chin’s stained red, and Mark’s heart stops for a moment. And then he moves.

  
“Hey! Let him go!”

 

The polo players part a little, turn to him and make the predictable stupid jokes about how Mardon’s got a boyfriend now. Hartley reacts to that with viciousness and cutting words, as is his nature, and gets kicked in the stomach for the trouble.

 

Mark sees red – and in what feels like ten seconds, the polo guys are spitting out vague threats and scampering off, most of them a few bruises richer than they were a minute ago. Mark was right: these private school kids don’t know the first thing about fighting.

 

Unfortunately, that means that Hartley doesn’t know how to protect himself. He’s still rubbing his knuckles against his mouth, and when Mark grabs his hand to pull it away and see the damage, Hartley hisses and yanks his hand away.

 

At first, Mark thinks it’s just the guy being contrary for the hell of it, but then he sees tears, annoyed and pained, in Hartley’s eyes and he frowns, reaching for his hand away. He carefully curls his fingers around Hartley’s wrist and the other guy gasps, then bites down on his split lip… then hisses again.

  
“Let me help,” Mark sighs and Hartley must be a little dizzy, because he sways and his protests are half-assed at best when Mark puts his arm around Hartley’s waist. He’s so slim – it’s like he hasn’t changed since his first day here. It’s only then that Mark physically feels the five inches he’s grown in the past year.

 

“We have to get you to an emergency room,” he says quietly and Hartley turns his blazing eyes to him:

  
“Just leave me alone.”

 

“No.”

  
“Why?”

  
“Because you probably need an X-Ray for that hand and you obviously can’t drive.”

 

It’s hard to argue with that logic, but Hartley doesn’t speak to him all the way to the hospital, just leans back in the seat of Mark’s shiny new Lexus and closes his eyes, face turned away.

 

……….

 

Hartley comes out of the emergency room with his hand in a cast. There’s an angry red cut over his bottom lip that’s not bleeding anymore, and he’s pale as death, but then, Hartley probably never gets any sun, so he’s pale all the time.

 

Mark practically jumps up from his seat, and Hartley raises an eyebrow at him.

  
“You’re still here.”

 

Mark shrugs: “It’s not like I could just leave you here, right?”

 

“You could have. My father’s sending a car to pick me up.”

  
“Oh.” Mark rubs the back of his neck – he feels like an idiot for waiting, when it’s not like Hartley doesn’t have any other options. He licks his lips and looks around, unsure how to bow out of the awkward situation… and then, there are bony fingers curling in Mark’s crumpled shirt, right over his stomach (which is doing backflips when Mark realizes the fingers are Hartley’s).

  
“Thanks,” Hartley breathes out, and it sounds like it’s physically painful for him to say it, but it might also be that the painkillers haven’t kicked in yet and he actually _is_ in quite a bit of pain from his hand. Mark gapes at the other boy, and Hartley frowns.

  
“Don’t you dare think this means anything, Mardon. We’re not friends.”

  
“Why not?” Mark blurts before he can stop himself. But he genuinely wants to know, so it’s not like he’d take it back even if he could. Not even when Hartley scowls deeper.

  
“What do you mean, why not? Why do you have to be so obsessed with me?”

  
“Why do you have to be such a dick to everyone?” Mark grumbles.

  
“Why shouldn’t I be?!”

 

“Because I’ve been wanting to ask you out since the first time I saw you and you’re making it really difficult!”

 

The words hang between them – it’s not exactly deadly silence, since they’re still in a hospital and there’s a lot of bleeping and yelling and rushing in the background, but it does feel like they’re enclosed in a bubble just for the two of them… and the stupid _words_.

 

Hartley’s hand falls away from Mark’s shirt, and Mark’s stomach flips again, unpleasantly.

 

“You-… you’re not my type,” Hartley says, but he stutters and his eyes shift to the side. He could just as well have a neon light over his head blaring ‘I’M LYING.’ It’s not that Mark’s overconfident in his looks, but he _knows_ he’s not exactly a hideous troll. Shawna’s teased him about his perpetually wind-swept hair and his cheekbones often enough for him to know. And Hartley’s pale face gets a distinctly pink tinge when he glares up at Mark again.

  
“Can you just go away now?”

 

Mark chuckles.

  
“Not before you agree to go out with me. One date. Just one. And if you hate it, you can tell me to fuck off afterwards.”

 

Hartley’s mouth falls open, and he’s awfully quiet for about three seconds – then, he rolls his eyes and groans:

  
“Fine, Mardon, you win. But you’re paying, and if you take me to a goddamned-“

 

Mark never learns where Hartley _doesn’t_ want to go for their date, because endorphins rush through his body and roar in his ears and he’s uncontrollable by the time he feels himself leaning in and pressing his mouth against Hartley’s. He tastes like antiseptic and pulls away just a moment later with a hiss of pain because of his split lip, but for the briefest seconds, his mouth moves to accommodate Mark’s, and that’s enough, for now.

  
“Taking advantage of a person high on painkillers, very noble,” Hartley grumbles, but his face is basically the color of ripe tomatoes, and Mark can’t help but chuckle under his breath as he turns away.

 

He’s got one date to persuade Hartley that they could work: he’s got a lot of planning to do.


	7. "Don't yell at me like I'm a child!" Mick Rory/Leonard Snart

“I’m not doing that anymore! You can’t make me!” Lisa screams in a voice that would suggest somebody’s skinning her alive.  
  
Len sighs. He loves his sister, he really does, but thirteen seems to be the magical barrier between ‘sweet’ and ‘hellspawn’ and Lisa has just crossed it. A few months, hell, _weeks_  ago, she had no problem with her schoolwork, but suddenly, every time Len brings up her responsibilities, she starts acting like… well, like an angry, hormone-driven demon. 

When he signed up for custody of his sister a year ago, he really did not think it through to puberty. His bad, he can admit that now.

“Come back here,” he snaps. Those words are basically burned into his brain by now, after having said them in varying levels of ‘harrassed’ at least fifteen times in the past hour. “You signed up for it, you’re gonna finish it.”

“Why?” she scowls, crossing her arms over her chest and tossing her head back to get rid of the hair falling into her face. Len’s not even touching that subject right now: haircuts have been a sore spot for a while. “I don’t give a shit about the stupid science fair!”

Len wisely picks his battles and disregards the language. Instead, he tries to reason with her, _again_ , because despite all evidence pointing to the contrary in the past weeks, he still believes Lisa to be an intelligent life form.

“You were excited about the science fair last month,” he says calmly. For some reason, that just seems to incite her further:

“Well I don’t care about it _now_!”

“Lisa, come back,” Len growls, tired of this stupid fighting. He feels stupidly young then, eighteen and sorely under-educated on the subject of raising a teenager. “Or I’m telling Mick to set fire to the TV!”

“Don’t yell at me like I’m a child!” she screams and hurls the first object within her reach in his general direction. 

“Then don’t throw scissors,” he snorts and doesn’t even pretend to duck: Lisa might’ve turned into a homicidal ball of rage, but there are boundaries neither of them will ever cross with the other, for reasons neither of them likes mentioning. Even when she’s seething, Len can feel those boundaries still firmly in place.

“I’ll do what I want!” she yells before the door to her room slams shut so hard that the sound rattles Len’s _teeth_. 

Ah well. Time for drastic measures.

…

“No,” Len sighs and runs his hand over his face. “For the last time, Mick, we’re not burning shit for a science fair project.”

“It’s an option,” Mick argues and stabs his finger into the brochure that, indeed, suggests examining the changing colors of flames based on… something that Len’s extremely unwilling to examine with a convicted pyromaniac.

Mick is… Mick, and Len has come to accept (even embrace) that fact with all his heart, but there are certain things that just aren’t wise.

“Not an option for _us_ ,” he says and knocks his knee against Mick’s under the rickety table. They found it together, on a sidewalk five blocks away, and dragging it back to the tiny apartment had been hell. Mick bitched about getting splinters in his hands, and Len still believes that Mick did it on purpose, to distract Len and make him laugh. Len took tweezers to the splinters once they were home (there were only two, really), and then teased Mick about kissing it better until Mick took him up on the offer.

Len drags his eyes back to the brochure before he starts thinking of experiments definitely not suited for a seventh-grade science fair. 

“How about this one?” he points it out to Mick, who raises an eyebrow, but looks intrigued despite the scoffing:

“Heating water with a peanut? What kinda stupid shit is that?”

Len chuckles. 

“Let’s try and see.”

Mick’s foot slides across his ankle, against the sensitive underside of the bone, and Len shivers, even as Mick appears entirely focused on the project. Asshole.

“How ‘bout we see how many peanuts it takes to _really_  set something on fire?”

Len sighs.

That’s probably as good as it’s gonna get, with Mick as help. Len decides to believe that maybe, it will teach Lisa a valuable lesson about making her brother and his juvy boyfriend do her homework, and smirks.

“Let’s go get some peanuts, then.”


	8. "Why'd you hug him? You love him?" Mick Rory/Leonard Snart

Len stumbles into existence at three p.m. on a bright summer day.

He has existed before, in some sort of an odd limbo between life and death, half-aware and perpetually confused by the fragments of multiple realities he was seeing, hearing, smelling, with no physical body to speak of. But this… this is different. Hearing the crunch of gravel underneath his feet, feeling the sun warm his face, even smelling the park’s overflowing trash can just a few feet away… he never thought he’d miss this so much.

Len doesn’t know where he is exactly - or even _when_  he is, after the chaotic swirl of the past, present and future that he was trapped in for the past… who knows how long. He has no real idea what happened that could have pulled him back from wherever he was stuck-

-but then, he looks around, and apart from a gaggle of kids hanging themselves upside down from the colorful monkey bars, he sees it. 

Him.

“Mick…?” he mouths, his voice unfamiliar to his own ears, and he’s suddenly aware of his own heartbeat, pounding away in his chest. 

Mick looks angry, but that’s not new; Len never feared him, even when Mick was at his worst. Caution isn’t fear, after all, and while Mick could be a danger to everyone, even himself, Len never had a reason to truly doubt this man. Seeing him stalk right across the playground, making children jump out of his way with unhappy scowls, is a soothing balm for Len’s soul - he’s not sure how long he’s got, whether this is permanent or just another in the series of weird events that have unfolded since he stuck his hand in that damned thing. 

But he knows that if he doesn’t have the time to stay long, he wants to… he doesn’t know what it is exactly, but after the limbo, Len wants to _feel_.

“Snart,” Mick basically growls, as if he’s taken personal offense at Len saving his life. Len wants to argue, wants to tell Mick to shut up and not be an ungrateful asshole… but words have deserted him, after so long, and talking’s not what he wants most, not now.

Mick lets out a surprised huff when Len’s body collides with his. Len wraps his arms around Mick’s waist, buries his face in the man’s scarred, warm neck, and breathes.

Funny how warmth is what one misses the most when he botches his own death.

Something collides with Len’s ankle and he startles out of the embrace - if one can even call it that, with Mick standing still like a shocked, grumpy statue. Len looks down, towards the source of impact, and finds a medium-sized ball, covered with colorful pictures of some kids’ show or another.

A little girl appears in his line of sight in the next moment to retrieve her ball. She’s around five, dark-haired and missing her front teeth, and she peers up at them with calculating curiosity only a kid her age could possess.

“Why did you hug him?” she demands of Len, her big eyes narrowing. “Do you love him?” 

The simple words, spoken with such ease, jolt Len like a bump on the road. He opens his mouth, but he hasn’t used his voice for far too long, not for _this_  - far longer than he spent trapped in the Oculus’ aftermath. They’ve never put things into words, him and Mick - never needed to, really, not after everything they’ve been through. They had each other’s back, and respect, and that had been it, no great declarations, no promises that could not be kept in their line of work. It was what it was, and neither of them tried to complicate things with words…

…but maybe what it had always been was _simple_.

“Mommy says you should tell people,” the kid huffs, and she resembles Mick in that moment so much that Len can’t help the chuckle that escapes his lips. The girl, predictably, gets offended, and Len almost wonders, for a moment, if maybe she’s connected to Mick somehow, if Mick was at the playground because somewhere along the way, when Len wasn’t there, Mick got himself a daughter.

But the kid runs back to a worried-looking woman who looks too damn perfect to belong with Mick. No… Mick’s never had a taste for ‘perfect’, and Len’s damage always fit with Mick’s all too well.

He looks at Mick then, and he wonders if he _could_ , after all, say it. If a five-year-old can make things simple, surely a dead man could manage the same, if only he tried.

“You’ve always been a sap” Mick accuses him, but his eyes speak a different language, and Len smirks. Maybe their ‘simple’ means they don’t need words.

“Beer?” Mick offers, and Len lets himself be seduced by the idea of feeling a cold drink slide down his throat again. 

He keeps his arm draped around Mick’s waist as they exit the park. Mick wasn’t wrong, after all.


	9. "Your smile is not as bright as it used to be." Olivarry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For guja97 on tumblr who asked for this prompt with Oliver and Barry XD I don't watch Arrow so my Oliver might not be up to date lol.

 

Barry would’ve never thought that he’d feel sympathetic towards Eobard Thawne, but he has to admit that after a week of trying - and failing - to get himself out of 2074, the world’s starting to look a little too bleak for his tastes. It’s not that he doesn’t have time: in this year, as in any other he’s visited so far, Iris has been dead for decades and Barry still doesn’t have more than clues and hints about where to look next.

But Savitar’s identity remains a mystery, and Barry is stuck wandering the eerily clean streets of Central City that he doesn’t recognize. 

When it becomes apparent his speed’s not up to par - and that STAR Labs has been shut down for years - he decides he needs to seek help elsewhere. And since he’s got no way of calling out to Ray, Stein or any of the other time-travelers after he’d used his one and only beacon in 2056, all Barry can think of is to haul ass to Star City, hoping for the best.

The headlines on one of the giant news projectors make it abundantly clear that Oliver’s not running the show anymore. Barry feels a momentary pang of fear - a few weeks ago, he’s stumbled upon the year where Joe died - but the lights in Oliver’s windows are on, and Barry doesn’t bother knocking before he phases through the door.

He hears the scream for a split second before he’s got his hands full with picking up a falling tray. He manages to save the glass _and_ the plate, but the woman is still screaming when Barry comes back to a human speed. He winces and hands her the tray - that surprises her enough to silence her, which Barry’s grateful for.  
  
“Hey,” he manages, lamely, “I’m sorry, I’m looking for Oli- for Mr. Queen, does he still live here?”

It takes a bit of persuading - she’s hell-bent on calling the police at first - but in the end, she motions her head towards a half-open door and Barry pushes through without further ado.

He should’ve expected the sight that greets him: it’s not like Ollie’s a meta, and it’s been nearly sixty years. But he’s so small against the pillows propping him up, so fragile with his bones almost visible through the paper-thin, wrinkled skin, dotted with spots. He turns his head, and his eyes are startlingly the same; there’s even a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth as he sees Barry standing in the doorway.

“I knew it,” he says, and his voice drags as if his throat doesn’t quite remember how to do its job. “I knew you’d be back, one day.”

Barry’s chest gets tighter, and he tries his best to tell himself that this is normal, this is just life, time passing in a way he’s never been so acutely aware of. 

“I never left,” he breathes quietly and walks closer, caught in a trance-like state that pulls him towards Ollie’s bed and makes his heart beat faster. It’s stupid to fear a friend, an old man whose bony hands are too shaky to be a threat. But Barry’s not afraid of being attacked - what scares him is how much Oliver’s not his usual larger-than-life self.

He sits gingerly on the edge of Oliver’s bed and reaches out: Oliver’s hand feels so damn small in his own, even when it squeezes with a semblance of its old strength. 

“You haven’t changed,” Ollie speaks again, and Barry can’t quite stop his eyes from watering, even as he tries to act normal, tries his hardest not to think of all the years he’s missed in Oliver’s life, all the things they had once tried and never finished, not really, both of them too caught up in their own lives to make a life that would be _theirs_. It had not lasted long, that illusion that maybe, they could - Barry wonders if Oliver still remembers those days, from time to time, and whether he has the right to remind him.

Whether he even wants to.

“But your smile,” Oliver continues, and his twitching thumb runs across Barry’s knuckles, “your smile’s not as bright as it used to be, ‘Flash’.”

“I need your help,” Barry croaks - it’s like his voice is trying to get closer to Oliver, any way it can, “I need to get back to… to 2017.”

He doesn’t say ‘my time’, because this time is as much his as it is Oliver’s - it’s just that he doesn’t want any of it, not yet, not before he can see where his life could lead if he does’t cheat himself through decades like levels in a game. 

They talk, for a little while, but it becomes clear that Oliver doesn’t know anything that could help, in any way, even if he might have means of helping Barry get out of this time.

“You can talk to my R&D,” Oliver says, and when Barry tries to get up, his gnarly fingers, like roots of some magical tree, wrap around Barry’s wrist and refuse to let go. 

“Tomorrow,” he adds, and it’s both a plea and an order. Barry hesitates: he can’t let himself get distracted, not now, not before he reaches his goal; not before he saves Iris and sees Oliver alive and well and young once again, strong and fearless, with years and years stretching ahead of him.

But he can’t bring himself to push Oliver’s hand away in the end.

“How about we catch up, huh?” Barry offers, “I mean, you can tell me what you’ve been doing, I guess I don’t have much to say,” he chuckles a little.

“There it is,” Oliver mutters, and his other hand brushes against Barry’s jaw, foreign in its age, gentle in its fragility. “That smile. I’ve spent fifty years waiting for you to come back, Barry… I knew you would. Everybody stopped believing… but I couldn’t, not after what you said that day.”

Barry’s got no idea what Oliver’s talking about - he suddenly feels left out, like Oliver’s talking about a time Barry hasn’t come to experience just yet, but he lets the old man ramble on, only half-listening, unable to concentrate.

But when Oliver’s eyelids start drooping and his voice trails off, Barry still leans over and presses a kiss to the old man’s wrinkled forehead. Oliver mumbles something, and his fingers around Barry’s hand tighten momentarily.  
  
“I would’ve said yes,” he more breathes than whispers, and Barry’s eyes widen: but Oliver’s sound asleep then, and Barry doesn’t have the heart to ask for a clarification. Fifty years… Barry remembers the headline in the newspaper from 2024, about his disappearance, and he can’t help but wonder what happened between 2017 and that headline that made Oliver sound like this, after such a long time. 

Barry’s own heart twists at the thought that maybe, in the end, after he had been done mourning Iris, maybe he took the chance that he had missed before. But that kind of thinking will lead him nowhere and he pushes the ‘maybe’s and ‘what if’s down before they can burrow deep into his heart and spring roots of doubt where only determination needs to grow. 

Twelve hours later, when he’s armed with Queen Industries’ newest tech and speeding through time to decades not yet past, to find his way back to Iris, he still remembers Oliver’s green eyes as he said his ‘yes’ to a man who never really asked the question.

But a part of Barry’s brain keeps repeating a pig-headed ‘not yet’ all the way to 2097.


	10. SteelAtom: "You're supposed to talk me out of this."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt fill for 'ofstarlightandbows' on tumblr :) my first steelatom so be gentle :'D
> 
> noLegends!AU, basically.

“That’s fantastic!” Ray repeats for what feels like the hundredth time, the corners of his mouth hurting from how much he’s smiling. 

Mostly, he’s forcing it, and feeling like a horrible person because he can’t be honestly happy for his best friend’s success. The logical part of Ray’s brain, the small part that’s not currently rolling around on the floor kicking around and screaming ‘no’, recognizes that Nate deserves this. He’s been working on that project non-stop for nearly a year, poured his sweat and blood into it (literally, when he forgot to shower for a few days that one time, and then when his nose wouldn’t stop bleeding for seven hours straight that _other_ time). Ray _knows_ that Nate deserves the opportunity to travel and oversee the digs that were going to prove his theories, and that getting grant money like this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. 

But a larger part of Ray’s brain is too busy feeling betrayed and abandoned to really acknowledge this as the exciting moment it should be, and he’s starting to worry that all the beer they’ve drunk in ‘celebration’ will blur the lines between the rational and the irrational, and he’ll say something he’ll regret.

Nate himself looks anything but happy - his expression turns stormier by the minute and he’s outright scowling now, though he’s stubbornly staring at the wall instead of Ray. He’s a sentimental, slightly weepy drunk most of the time, so the building rage in his eyes does not make much sense (especially since Ray himself is just loopy and slow after a couple of beers).  
  
“Yeah,” Nate mumbles, sighing. “Can’t wait… I mean, two years, that’s a pretty long time.”

Ray can’t argue with that, but he refuses to back down from his forcibly enthusiastic reaction - he fears that if he lets the optimistic mask slip, the ugly _something_  insistently shouting ‘no’ in the back of his mind will rear its head and do something horrible.

“Yeah,” he soldiers on, a smile still wide on his face, “but you earned it. Send me a postcard sometimes, will you? I mean, I know postcards are pretty outdated and you could just send a text or an e-mail, but I never got any-”

“Dammit, Ray!” Nate yells suddenly and Ray freezes, going silent. Nate pushes off the couch and stalks around, like a caged lion ready to pounce. It makes something shift in Ray’s stomach, something that’s not quite worry or fear because it’s Nate and he’s never been afraid of Nate, but it’s… nervous, tingling, and strange, and Ray doesn’t really know how to breathe through it. He’s still trying to get rid of all that fluttery weirdness when Nate whips around and glares at him, eyes blazing and cheeks red.

“You’re supposed to talk me out of this! Do you really think I can pull off two years around the world? I live in my mom’s basement, for crying out loud!”

Ray blinks, and the tingling gives way to confusion, for a moment.

“Do you… not want to go?” he asks slowly, and Nate throws his arms up with a frustrated groan.

“Why are you- ugh nevermind, of course I want to go. More than anything, really. Almost anything,” he adds those last two words with a strange tint of wistfulness, and Ray wonders what that’s about. He wipes his suddenly-sweaty palms against his jeans and shrugs:  
  
“So what’s the problem?”

Nate turns away, but Ray catches a glimpse of the blush spreading across his face, the shade and intensity of a stoplight.

“I want to go,” Nate mutters, and his words slur a little, “but more than that I want you to _not_ want me to go, alright?”

Ray’s quiet for a moment: not so much because he’s pondering the reaction but because he’s trying to process what Nate just said. It seems almost like- but that couldn’t be right, could it?

Ray’s stomach flips, in a really not-bad way, and he licks his lips just as Nate turns to him again, looking for all intents and purposes like he’s just signed his own death warrant. 

“Tell me not to go,” he almost whispers, and Ray wishes he could - but Nate said he did want to go, and Ray’s not going to kill his dreams. Especially if he’s the only one who can talk Nate out of this.

“Send me that postcard, alright?” he smiles and turns towards the door. He almost wishes that Nate would stop him… but Ray’s not sure why, or what he truly wants to happen, and he won’t find out tonight, when his brain’s powered down for the day, courtesy of the four beers he really shouldn’t have had.

It’s only after he’s slept and showered and had his breakfast that he realizes what it all means. What it _probably_ means, in any case - and what he can do to find out. Ray pulls his laptop towards him and a small smile forms on his lips despite the throbbing headache.

…………

“What are you doing here?!”

Ray can’t help but smile, this time for real, when he hears Nate’s voice skip up an octave or two. 

“Catching a flight,” he says easily and adjusts the straps of his backpack - it’s funny how little one needs when making a split-second decision based on a silly hunch that might not even come true.

But hey… whatever Nate might turn out to be in the future, he’s still Ray’s best friend, and he deserves the support.

When Ray turns from checking the number of their flight, he finds Nate gaping at him, lips parted and eyes wide, as if he can’t quite believe that Ray’s there.

“What…?” Nate breathes out, and Ray’s mouth is starting to hurt again from all the smiling, but this time, it feels like the good kind of ache. He steps closer and reaches out and Nate’s hand is right there, pliant under Ray’s touch as he tangles their fingers together, in a light, almost teasing gesture that could be played off as a joke if he’s reading this all wrong.

But he’s not, judging by the way Nate goes red and tightens his fingers around Ray’s almost painfully.

“Come on,” he chuckles, tugging Nate towards their boarding gate, “we have a nine-hour flight to catch. Plenty of time to talk.”

Nate lets himself be pulled, and he doesn’t let go of Ray’s hand until they’re seated on the plane.

When he does, it’s only to smack Ray over the head for leaving his cozy job to traipse around archaeological digs for two years. But he follows that up with a kiss, so Ray’s really not complaining.

By the time they land, Ray’s become used to the tingling in his stomach. He knows now, for sure, that they’re the good kind - and they’re there to stay.


	11. Hartmon, coda to 3x19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short fic for The Flash 3x19 - some domestic fluff with 2024!Cisco and Hartley.

Cisco snaps into wakefulness so suddenly it leaves him gasping for air. Something’s nagging at his consciousness, something he hasn’t felt in a very, very long time, and he sits up against the headboard, grabbing his laptop from the bedside table.

“Why do you hate me,” Hartley groans and rolls over, still mostly asleep, fingers tangling in the thin cotton of Cisco’s boxers. It hitches the fabric up his thigh and Cisco smiles absently, taking a moment to run one rounded knuckle along Hartley’s bare shoulder. The circuitry is keeping his hands warm, nowhere near the human skin levels, but far from the usual icy feel of metal. It was Hartley who came up with the solution, after Cisco kept startling himself awake in the middle of the night, drenched in cold sweat and dreaming of ice crackling up his forearms; but the warmth has its other uses, simpler, sweeter.

Hartley mumbles under the touch and cracks one eye open as Cisco taps away, giving into the strange foreboding sensation in his gut.

“What is it?”

“Just a feeling. Go back to sleep,” Cisco whispers back, unwilling to rouse his partner unless there’s an actual emergency. Daniela will do that anyway, soon enough – the nights have been less than peaceful ever since the teething pain came back, and so they’ve had to resort to afternoon naps like this one whenever there’s a moment of peace.

The security feed of the city looks like it does any other day, or at least any day that Cisco bothers to check; it’s less and less often, these days, what with the constant rollercoaster of formula, diapers and snatching any chance at getting some rest.

And then, his attention snags on a flash of red, and Cisco’s heart nearly stops in his chest. He plays it back, slowly, and sure enough, there he is: the Flash, Barry Allen, in all his long-forgotten glory, blazing red and daring, fighting the Top and the Mirror Master as if the last seven years never happened. For a split second, Cisco dares to hope that his friend has had enough of his hermit life, but then he catches a glimpse of the Flash symbol on the speedster’s chest, and he knows with heart-wrenching certainty that this is not _his_ Barry. Or at least, not his current one, the man destroyed by the loss of his heart and of himself.

Cisco snaps the laptop shut and leans over to press a kiss to Hartley’s temple.

“I gotta go.”

That gets Hartley’s attention, and he scrunches up his face, blinking slowly.

“Be careful, alright?”

Hartley doesn’t ask where it is he has to go, and Cisco takes a second to breathe through the sudden wave of intense love that sweeps over him: he knows they’ve come to trust each other implicitly in the past four years, something he never would’ve thought possible, but it still catches him unawares in moments like these, when Hartley doesn’t even think about treating him as anything else than a self-sufficient genius that he still is, even without his powers.

“Get some rest while you can,” he chuckles quietly and slips out of the bed, grabbing his padded gloves and some clothes off the floor. With a grimace, he tosses his hoodie, stained with spit-up, in the vague direction of an armchair that has become an impromptu laundry basket in the past few days. He grabs Hartley’s oversized sweater instead and ties his hair in a quick ponytail, grimacing as he realizes he doesn’t remember the last time he had the time to hop into a shower. Well, 2017 Barry will just have to deal with it: he’s not here for a beauty contest, anyway.

“Be right back,” he calls softly over his shoulder; before he slips out of the room, he hears Hartley’s voice, muffled into a pillow:

“Love you.”

“Love you too,” Cisco mumbles. He checks up on their daughter real quick, making sure she’s still asleep, and closes the door as quietly as possible, then runs towards the wreck of an apartment where Barry Allen will no doubt be looking for some answers.


	12. "Why is there a pregnancy test in the trash?" [Rogues]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anon prompt fill from tumblr: Snart siblings, Mick and "Why is there a pregnancy test in the trash?"

Lisa gives him the Unimpressed Look when he storms into the living room, holding a piece of plastic that she recognizes too damn well.

“Why is there a pregnancy test in the trash?!” Lenny snaps; he looks like he’s going to hyperventilate and Lisa knows in the back of her mind that she should feel sorry for him, but it’s just too damn amusing to watch Captain Cold get so flustered. Over a stick.

“Your boyfriend came by,” she grins, “he wasn’t sure you pulled out properly. You should really be more careful, Jerk.”

“Lisa,” he huffs in response - no ‘Trainwreck’, that can only mean one thing. He’s serious, and he’s worried, and Lisa can’t really tease him anymore.

“Relax, oh my god, I don’t know anything about a pregnancy test-”

“Don’t lie to me, Lisa, you’re the only one in this apartment who could-”

“What if Mick brought someone-”

“Yeah  _right_ -”

“Give me that thing - it’s not even positive, stop freaking out-”

Len’s about to snap something back and reaches for the pregnancy test again when Mick emerges out of his room, and both of them freeze.

Well, in all fairness, it’s not so much the sight of Mick as the sight of  _another_  pregnancy test sticking out of the empty pudding cup in Mick’s hand that makes them gape.

“Are you serious?!” Lisa snarls and stalks to the pyro, yanking the chocolate-smeared test and pointing it at his sorry mug. “These things go for ten bucks a pop.”

“Then invest in some plastic spoons, we’re out,” Mick shrugs and aims straight for the fridge. Lisa groans. Len, predictably, snorts.

“Gonna stop by the store right now. Easier for your wallet, sis. And my heart.”


	13. "I didn't intend to kiss you." steelatom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt fill for jewishraypalmer on tumblr :)  
> [college professors/TAs AU]

When Ray walks into the lab that morning, Nate is already there. Usually, Ray would not be too happy about someone invading his workspace, mostly because he’s learned the hard way that most people can’t be trusted around sensitive equipment – ‘the hard way’ being the course he has been roped into teaching this semester. But Nate is just as particular about his artifacts as Ray is about machinery, so there’s no reason to worry.

At least, no reason of the mechanical kind: when Ray looks closer, Nate is shifting on his feet nervously, hands stuck in the pockets of his jacket and obviously fiddling with something, maybe a loose thread or a coin. When he spots Ray, he attempts a smile, but it’s a far cry from his usual warm one. Ray knows, because that smile, open and happy, always makes Ray’s stomach flutter in that weird but pleasant way. This one just makes his insides tighten with the expectation of the worst.

“Hey, buddy,” he says tentatively, but he knows what’s going to come out of Nate’s mouth even before the other TA even tries. Ray’s been here before, falling hard back to reality after having floated on cloud nine for a while, and that’s okay, he’ll get over it, but he can’t say he’s happy about the turn of events. Not after last night, when he really thought they had something good going, something _real_.

But here they are, Nate unable to meet his eyes and fidgeting nervously even as he coughs and probably tries to find words that will soften the blow.

“I… um. Hey. I just wanted to… about last night.”

Ah, here it comes; Ray pulls out his Neutral Smile and leans against a workbench, wishing he were brave enough, or maybe crazy enough, to just stalk up to Nate and shut him up with a passionate kiss. But Ray’s not that guy: he’s been rejected way too many times to know how it goes. He’ll plead and try to talk it out, and in the end, Nate will walk away to someone else, someone better, someone not Ray.

But he doesn’t say any of that out loud – Nate obviously needs to get this off his chest, and maybe, if Ray plays his cards right, he’ll still have someone to talk to over lunch, after the awkwardness and hurt passes.

“So, the punch was pretty strong,” Nate mumbles, and Ray knows that: he’s pretty sure it was spiked by one of the Physical Ed people, who kept smirking at everyone pouring themselves a cup. Ray himself had the foresight to stick to one serving only, but Nate… well. Nate did not. It’s a wonder he doesn’t look more hungover, the way he kept swaying and singing made-up lyrics to the Star Wars theme through the second half of the faculty party.

Ray really should’ve known better than to let it happen, mistletoe or not.

Nate takes another deep breath and visibly braces himself, pulling his hands out of his pockets and clenching them into loose fists at his sides, like he’s steeling for a punch. But he doesn’t avoid Ray’s eyes any longer and something uncurls and stretches in Ray’s chest, fond and aching, at the sight of his friend, meeting every battle head-on, be it with the department heads or the results of his own misguided, drunken affection.

“Look, I didn’t intend to kiss you. I’m really sorry. I don’t want things to be awkward between us, and I really don’t want you to stop talking to me, because you’re probably the only sane person in this hellhole and I don’t want to lose you over this. I know you’re straight, and I, uh, well I thought until recently that I was straight too, but I’m not going to, like, you know. Um. I mean. I know I screwed up, but can you just forget it? It doesn’t have to be… a thing. A problem. We’ll pretend it never happened, I’ll never do that again and you won’t avoid me for the rest of our lives, okay?”

Ray’s heart, which has been steadily cracking since Nate started speaking again, stops somewhere in the middle of that speech. It takes a while for every word to register because Ray’s brain short-circuited around the ‘you’re straight’ part, but when his cognitive functions successfully reboot, he still doesn’t know what to say.

Did Nate just… wait.

“Wait,” Ray says out loud, because that’s as far as he gets before his mind starts whirring in twenty directions at once. “You- so you didn’t come to tell me it was a mistake?”

Nate blinks at him.

“Dude, I just _told_ you it was a mistake.”

Ray shakes his head, pushes away from the workbench and takes a step closer. Then another. Nate doesn’t try to put any more distance between them. Ray’s heart thumps wildly against his ribs, until it almost hurts.

“Yeah, but you made it sound like it was my mistake, not yours.”

“Wow, did I? I don’t want to put the blame on you, buddy, seriously, I’m fully aware it was my mistake, you didn’t- you didn’t do anything wrong, I shouldn’t have trusted that punch-“

“No, wait, wait, you said I was straight, and that you don’t want to- you were apologizing, not letting me down.”

“Of course it was an apology. Weren’t you listening? What do you mean, not letting you-“

That’s when the implication seems to sink into Nate’s hangover-fuzzed brain and his eyes grow to saucer-size. Ray can see color rising in his cheeks, but Nate still doesn’t look away, even as his hands curl and uncurl at his sides, as if he’s not sure what to do.

“So. Uh. You’re… you didn’t mind?”

Ray takes the final few steps forward, smiling.

“I really didn’t. And for the record, I thought you were straight too.”

Nate lets out a bark of a laugh and rubs a hand over his hair, messy today, like he didn’t take the time to look in the mirror in the morning. In a way it’s strangely flattering; Ray never had someone skip their morning routine just because they needed to see him. It’s a heady feeling, and Ray knows he could get used to it.

“How about we test that theory, like proper scientists?” he suggests, and it’s one of his smoother lines, so Nate better appreciate it.

Nate, however, scrunches up his nose and grimaces:

“Buddy, I’d love to, believe me, but… I kind of didn’t brush my teeth in the morning. I mean, I really didn’t expect this to go this well for me.”

The tension coiling in Ray’s stomach unwinds and releases a chuckle in its wake; somehow, even with horrible breath and messy hair, Nate feels right, like someone Ray’s been waiting for all his life. Someone who would be just as awkward as him, someone with whom Ray could just be himself, no matter what.

“I think I have a spare toothbrush somewhere around here,” he smiles, and Nate chuckles at that.

“Of course you do. Always the Eagle Scout, huh?”

“Be prepared,” Ray jokes and turns towards his table to rummage through the contents of his emergency kit until he finds what he’s looking for. “Ah. I might’ve used it before, you okay with that?”

Nate leans over his shoulder and plucks the toothbrush out of his hand; he does smell a bit stale, like sweat and alcohol and just a tiny bit of the cologne he wore yesterday, but Ray still feels himself gravitating towards Nate’s warmth, especially when the man smiles and gives him a playful look:

“It’s a big step, sharing a toothbrush.”

Ray can’t hold back an undignified snort of laughter. “Bigger than you drunkenly serenading my space buns?”

“That was about Leia’s hair and you know it!” Nate shrieks and pulls back, face red but eyes sparkling. As he disappears out the door on his way to the bathroom, Ray can hear his shout:

“But your space buns are pretty epic too!”

 

 


	14. ColdWest prompt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A super-short prompt fill for anon on tumblr who requested coldwest with two quotes: "Now hold on a diddly darn minute" and "Something about you makes me want to commit extreme violence".

“Now hold on a diddly darn minute. Why aren’t you dressed?” Iris huffs, her hands on her hips in a show of absolute displeasure. “We’re leaving in twenty minutes.”

Len makes a show out of carefully placing a bookmark in his Blue Meridian: The Search For The Great White Shark. It was a birthday gift, and Iris is now contemplating turning it into a murder weapon as the infuriating man raises his eyes to her like he’s hearing about this for the first time in his entire life.

“You mean,  _you’re_  leaving, sweetheart.”

“Don’t you ‘sweetheart’ me, Leonard, I  _told_  you that you’re coming with me, like it or not. You can play nice for a few hours, it won’t kill you - but I might, if you don’t get your pretty ass off that couch, stat.”

“Ooh, violent, aren’t we?” 

Iris wishes his smirk weren’t that attractive - she could be properly angry instead of mildly irritated then. 

“Something about you just makes me want to commit extreme violence,” she sighs. “Come on, I can’t ditch my father’s wedding.”

“Your detective father,” Len drawls, like this is an argument they haven’t had at least fifteen times over the past months. “And his district attorney fiancée.”

“They’re not going to prosecute you over the salmon.”

“Might opt for shooting me instead,” Len smirks again, but he’s rolling off the couch with his usual grace. Iris chuckles and slaps his chest when he brushes past her, on his way to the bathroom to make himself presentable like a good boyfriend he actually is, despite all of his attempts to salvage his ‘tough criminal’ reputation. 

He rubs at his chest with an exasperated grimace. “After all, violence obviously runs in the family.”

“You can include that in the toast, now hurry up or I’ll make you the designated driver for the night,” she threatens one last time, for good measure, and presses a loud kiss onto his cheek, leaving a smear of red against his stubbly chin.


	15. singaway

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this wasn't exactly a prompt but we were discussing the idea of Hartley marching into Singh's office to report who the Flash is and being surprised with being asked out for dinner instead so... here goes :D  
> For niennavalier on tumblr :)

David looks up from the files he’s been studying when he hears the office door open, fully expecting one of the officers to barge in with the news of yet another catastrophe befalling Central City. There’s been no shortage of those in the past few months and the precinct has been swamped in unsolved mysteries, burying David up to his ears in paperwork he could do without.

Instead of West or Brown, though, David finds a civilian standing in his doorway, looking like he’s simultaneously ready to both flee and pick a fight. He’s barely over twenty, his regular features still retaining the softness of childhood, but his green eyes are sharp behind his glasses, and he stares at David like he’s expecting to be asked to leave.

“Can I help you?” David offers, intrigued as one can only be when given an out from boring duties. The boy closes the door behind him and saunters to David’s desk, sitting down without being asked. There’s an air of entitlement around him that only comes from money, even though he’s not dressed particularly well, and he carries himself like a man who’s had to become one too soon, before his body could fully catch up to adulthood.

“I’m Hartley Rathaway,” he says, “yes, of _the_ Rathaways, though I’m not here to represent the family in any capacity, I assure you.”

The boy’s grin is crooked at best: David has caught the scandal a few months back, the Rathaway heir disinherited seemingly without a cause, but the defiant look in the kid’s eyes tells him that any comments on the fact would not be appreciated, so David gives only the briefest of nods and watches the boy relax a little.

“I have information about the Flash that might be of interest to this department,” Rathaway continues, and David raises an eyebrow.

“Oh?”

“Yes. I’ve learned a few facts that might help protect this city.”

David would bet that Central could go to hell and Hartley Rathaway would hardly even blink. Maybe he’s just been sitting in this office for far too long, but he leans forward, his interest caught not so much by the boy’s words as by the mixture of defiance and desperation in his eyes.

“I know who the Flash is,” Rathaway says, almost breathlessly, like he has not yet made peace with his decision to announce this secret to the world.

“Oh?” David repeats and closes the file sitting in front of him. The movement catches Rathaway’s eye and his gaze lingers on David’s hands, fingers lacing together atop the manila folder. David has long lost the ability to be surprised by people – they’re far too easy to read, too predictable for his liking most of the time. But now, he finds himself drawn to this boy, to the way he swallows as he stares, as if he’s looking for something to distract him from the task at hand.

David is familiar with the feeling, and he allows himself a spur-of-the-moment decision. “Would you like to discuss this matter over dinner, then?”

“Yes, thank you, that would be-“ Rathaway stops and blinks at him, long lashes fanning over his cheekbones briefly as it dawns on him that this might not be standard protocol. The ball is in the boy’s court, and for a moment, David thinks that he won’t quite know what to do with it.

“Wait… are you…”

“I am absolutely asking you out. Very unprofessional of me – you might reconsider your offer of information after all?” David smiles, and a shadow of blind determination settles over the boy’s features, erasing the previous startled expression completely.

“No. I’ll tell you.”

“Alright then,” David says and grabs his jacket before holding the door open to the kid.

…

“I gotta admit, I did not expect that,” David says, voice still rough as his heartbeat settles to a more manageable pace. He wipes the sweat from his brow with the back of his forearm, turning his head just enough to glance at Hartley’s flushed face, pressed into the pillow.

“That your CSI is the resident vigilante?” Hartley smirks, just like the little shit he is, and David feels an odd wave of fondness wash over him at the sight of his kiss-swollen lips curving up like that.

He waves his hand lazily and stretches, knee bumping Hartley’s hip lightly.

“No, I already knew that. Allen is many things, but subtle is not one of them.”

Hartley looks like an affronted cat, visibly bristling as he brings himself up to rest his weight against his elbows, glaring down at David.

“You knew all this time? And you didn’t do anything?”

“What would you have me do? Announce it to the city and disable the one line of defense we’ve had against all the metahuman criminals?”

Hartley scowls. David sighs.

“Besides,” he adds, “it’s a lot of fun watching Allen try to come up with yet another excuse for his chronic tardiness.”

That makes Hartley snort and he lets himself fall back into the pillows, maybe a little bit closer to David than before.

“I knew there was a reason I liked you.”

“You do?” David smiles, brushing a sweaty curl off Hartley’s forehead.

“I’m here, am I not? And I might be persuaded to keep my mouth shut, with the right incentive.”

David’s not twenty anymore – hell, he’s not been thirty in quite a while, either. But the glint in Hartley’s eyes, so deceptively innocent and large without his glasses, makes it impossible not to react.

“I’m sure I’ll think of something,” he promises and pounces, kissing the laughter right off Hartley’s lips.

**Author's Note:**

> Come talk to me/prompt me on [tumblr](http://pheuthe.tumblr.com/) :)


End file.
